Self-evaluation, Part 2

Okay, I think relaxing has officially gotten boring. So is feeling like I’ve been sitting on my ass for the last week and lost all my conditioning. On the plus side, those deep nagging aches, pains, and soreness have all gone, so I’m ready to go hard this coming week.

I was explaining to my Fulbright advisor today that preparing for a tournament is great for narrowing my game down, but always being in tournament-prep mode doesn’t leave me with much opportunity to experiment or diversify my game because I’m trying to focus all my energies on figuring out how to play the game I want to play. For example, all the work I’ve done in half guard over the last month or so was mostly oriented around getting back to the closed-guard and spider-guard games that I feel most comfortable with. With no tournaments on the immediate horizon, I can try and make my half guard more dangerous in its own right. Kind of what Sirlin describes here, though this is about video games.

The biggest hole in my game is my standup grappling. This becomes immediately apparent to virtually anyone who stands up with me for more than thirty seconds – with the gi or without, my standup game sucks. I love watching Shinya Aoki fight because everyone is so intimidated by his guard that he can jump around and do whatever the hell he wants. I want that. While I know that I need to work on this, I’ve come to understand that BJJ gyms are not the place to go to work on my standup (in retrospect, this should have been obvious). So while I’m focusing on BJJ, I’m going to be more focused on finding ways to win on the ground – making sure I can turn bad situations into good ones. A blue belt at Open Door BJJ told me once that fighting from the guard is just the first step to getting your opponent on their back. I like that a lot more than using all my energy up wrestling someone down to the mats. When I have a chance to get some dedicated standup instruction, I’d love to work on my wrestling/Judo, but for now, I’m a BJJer first and foremost. If I’m standing up off the BJJ mats, I’d rather punch anyway.

The other hole that this tournament exposed was my guard-passing game. It’s pretty bad – my coach told me later that we need to make my passes tighter. Like my standup game, I think that a lot of this is a matter of adjusting the techniques to my body type. Along similar lines, I need to get better at taking the back and getting my hooks in. I don’t mind hanging out there and looking for a submission, but being able to consistently break a turtle guard would make me much more dangerous.

I’m fairly comfortable with my guard by now, unsurprisingly. I want to make my butterfly guard more dangerous, start developing an X-guard game, and keep developing my stronger points. For now, I think I’ll actively work the butterfly guard, and spend the rest of my time trying to get better on top.

Physically, I was in pretty good shape for this tournament – cardio held up, though I could have been more explosive, and I didn’t really have to worry about being outmuscled or anything like that. I think I’m going to rearrange my workout schedule with an aim towards increasing grip strength, core strength, and flexibility, as I’m kind of plateauing when it comes to things that I can do with the equipment I have.

Okay, that’s like three posts about how awesome I wanna be. Enough of that.

Peace.

pat m.